This is the first part of a story about a child safeguarding issue at a school, Thomas Tallis School in Greenwich.

A concerned teacher Mick V, expressed concern about a child’s wellbeing and possible sexual abuse but then found himself the victim of a ficticious “parallel construction” to silence him. He lost his job at the school as a teacher and himself is targetted as a result.

This post contains the first of two articles – The Cover Up[2] . The next post will be Supervising organisations did nothing about my concerns relating to the possible abuse and neglect of the child[1] .

There is more than enough evidence, documents and emails, which are all reproduced at the end to back up Mick V’s Story.

He has tried and tried and tried and exhausted every single avenue and official authority to try and bring attention to the lack of safeguarding to this child. The system has closed ranks and worked together to ignore his concerns for the child and attack him. Are the corrupt individuals colluding?

This case illustrates not only that there are corrupt individuals, but that institutional corruption that works to punish the whistleblower, protect the establishments and powerful people and ignore the real needs of the child.

All we can do is to keep exposing it. The system is rigged – who rigs it and why? The more information that is out in the public, the more we can shine the light on the corruption and work out the pattern.

This is Mick V’s story. He has been has come through what they have thrown at him so far. Probably damaged but unbowed. It takes special people to stick to telling the truth come what may.

(Apologies for formatting problems still evident)

THE COVER UP

This case is about the wellbeing of the anorexic boy who was possibly subjected to the sexual abuse.

It is also about the total and repeated failures of the WHOLE safeguarding system and the system’s ongoing extensive attempts to pressurise me to stop exposing this matter.

It is shocking that the raising of concerns about the well being of a child could trigger such extensive cover-up.

The central issue is the wellbeing of this boy, but nobody seems to care about him.

All the information about his wellbeing is classified and secret.

After over 1,200 emails, numerous letters and phone calls to ALL Chief Executives of ALL bellow organisations over the period of the 22 months, I collected the huge amount of evidence that proves that the Thomas Tallis School, Winchmore Tutors Teacher supply agency, Ofsted, Greenwich Children’s Services, Greenwich Council, NCTL (National Teaching College), NUT, NSPCC, DfE (Dept. of Education), Police (DPS and operation Winterkey), ICO, Parliamentary Ombudsman, Children’s Commissioner, HSE, IICSA,… are all in it together.

The above list is NOT exhaustive.

I documented voluminous evidence of all the above. The short summary is below the link

“Supervising organisations did nothing about my concerns relating to the possible abuse and neglect of the child”. [1]

Summary

They created the system within the system in order to cover-up even the most basic failures of the system.

This way they protect the abusers of the most vulnerable in the society.

By protecting the abusers, they themselves have become abusers.

I would not be surprised that there are even more sinister reasons behind this (and the other cover-ups) especially considering how far they all went in order to silence me.

They are unelected and not accountable to anyone.

They keep their positions of power regardless of the outcomes of General elections or Council elections.

They are effectively ruling the UK and its population who they view with utter contempt whilst awarding themselves with immunity, huge salaries and bonuses.

They use “inter agency protocols” in order to legitimise the cover-up and to destroy any records that can prove their failures and incompetence (even in the most trivial of cases when the SEN child has to change the school, the notes are destroyed)

Thomas Tallis school stops at nothing in order to “pre-empt” me from “going with this to the local newspaper”

Thomas Tallis school was doing nothing in order to ensure the wellbeing of this child even though they knew much more than I about his troubles:

Safeguarding manageress (Mrs Kamei) claimed to me that she was “contacting his doctors at the hospital, but her calls were not returned by his doctors”. (?!)

She also claimed that “he was the highest risk pupil out of 1,800 pupils at this school”.

Considering the scale of this huge cover-up, I strongly suspect that something bad happened to him.

I emailed my serious concerns about the pupil to my line manageress Mrs Marie Smith at Thomas Tallis school in Greenwich on the 12/2/2016.

Instead of being provided with the “reassurance” and “feedback”, I was sacked less than 2 hours later despite numerous praises by the Deputy Head Mr Shaun Brown, praises by the parents of my pupils and praises from the Winchmore Tutors agency who employed me at the school.

After sacking, my locker was broken into by the school (Mrs Smith and others), my list of passwords was stolen then my email account and records from my laptop were deleted (it is against the Law to delete the records relating to health and safety), I was harassed, extensively blacklisted,..

Regardless, I continued raising my above concerns for the past 23 months about the anorexic/emaciated pupil, that could have resulted in his serious injury or death.

There were also signs that he was possibly sexually abused.

(Even though I did not state it explicitly in my whistleblowing email, I did mention several possible symptoms of the above.)

Despite my repeated requests, I was NEVER provided with the “reassurance” and “feedback” in relation to my concerns about the school’s neglect of the anorexic pupil.

(This is in breach of the school’s own Safeguarding Policy Page 14, Point 3 and Law Acts.)

“Reassurance and feedback have to be provided to the whistleblower” [17]

The school broke into my locker then stole my list of passwords then deleted/concealed and also amended my data that contains records related to the health and safety/safeguarding of pupils.

The school then deleted ALL my emails from my account and even from accounts of other members of school staff.

I was NOT provided even with the single email between me and other members of staff.

I only managed to get my whistleblowing email ( and it was in amended form) from the agency 4 months later after my SAR request.

Evidently, my data was NOT kept “locked and safe” by the school as can be seen from the above.

All the above is against the Law (FOI sections 55 and 77) and the school’s own safeguarding policy.

(This is also in breach of the school’s own Safeguarding policy prescribes that safeguarding records have to be “kept securely and locked – page 11, par.2” and Law Acts.)

The Headteacher Mrs Carolyn Roberts gave the school’s policeman my private phone number with intention to harass/intimidate me in orderto stop my complaints about the school’s failures to supervising organisations.

Headteacher Mrs Carolyn Roberts then falsely claimed to ICO that the school did not give their police officer my phone number. Headteacher Ms Carolyn Roberts FALSELY claimed to ICO that the school did not give their police officer my phone number[21]

I then asked the Police force to investigate the harassment.

Evidently, Headteacher Ms Carolyn Roberts was LYING:

“Police investigation proves that the School DID provide my phone number” [11]

Headteacher Ms Carolyn Roberts also sent members of school staff to my home address under false pretence of delivering their SAR disclosure with intention of provoking an incident.

Deputy Head Mr Shaun Brown also colluded in the cover-up despite his repeated praises ( in his emails) of my work during my employment at the school.

Relevant Links

Deputy Head Mr Shaun Brown – wants to stop me from going to the newspaper with my concerns[23]

“Headteacher Mrs Carolyn Roberts ADMITTED that she falsely claimed that she did not have any evidence relating to my good performance”[8]

Headteacher Ms Carolyn Roberts – “Mick had Ofsted onto us. What more can we do?” to Mr Mark Higgins of Greenwich Council [19]

Ms Donna Cussack asks the Greenwich Council to “support the school” in order to cover-up my concerns [18]

Greenwich Children’s Services and the Greenwich Council

Ms Donna Cussack asks the Greenwich Council to “support the school” in order to cover-up my concerns

( Evidently, Ms Cussack is NOT at all concerned about the need to support the anorexic pupil who needed a designated professional to take care of him – which the school never provided.

Instead, it is more important for her and her mates at the school that the school gets the Council’s “support” in the cover-up of school’s failures.)

Ms Donna Cussack asks the Greenwich Council to “support the school” in order to cover-up my concerns[18]

As can be seen from all the attachments (scans of their internal emails) both the school, Children’s Services and the Council NEVER discussed my serious concerns about the pupil.

They only discussed how to silence me and ruin my career.

Head of Children’s Services (Mrs Gillian Palmer) was also involved in the cover-up. Mrs Gillian Palmer was severely criticised by the Government’s Serious Case review relating to her failures in the death of Baby S some 9 years ago.That did not stop her moving to the same post (as the Head of Children’s Services) from Barnet Council to the Greenwich Council: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/scandal-of-baby-s-18-month-old-taken-365723

Head of Children’s Services Ms Gillian Palmer – “this is an HR matter rather than complaint about the school”[22](Evidently, she trivialises my serious health and safety concerns about anorexic pupil as an “HR matter”.)

Email from Greenwich Children’s Services [7](For reasons only known to him, Mr Murphy attempted to backdate his email for 3 days. Contrary to him, my email address did NOT change.)

Despite their repeated assurances to do so,Greenwich Council (several Councillors including the leader of the Council – Mrs Denise Hyland) and the Greenwich Children’s Services NEVER conducted any investigationinvestigation of my concerns and NEVER provided me with any feedback related to the wellbeing of the anorexic pupil even though I have been repeatedly raising this matter with them for 15 months !

The secrecy: Instead of getting the reassurance and feedback, the system claims that ALL the information in this matter is somehow secret, confidential and classified:

According to both the school, Greenwich Council and the NHS Trust even the redacted information about the hospital’s and school’s quality of care related to the anorexic pupil should NOT to be disclosed:

The NUT representative at Greenwich Council refers to the anorexic pupil (who jumps over the school fence every day thus leaving the school unauthorised and unsupervised) as the “regular jumper” (as if this was some kind of fitness regime) whose repeated absences are monitored/recorded on the text messaging system which I do NOT have to know about.

In her email, my line manageress (Mrs Smith) reassures her managers (and the Headteacher) and even boasts to them that she “was totally professional by telling (me) nothing about the anorexic pupil”.

I issued the FOI request 13 months ago also to the NHS Trust relating to their quality of care for this child.

The NHS Trust repeatedly REFUSED to provide any information about the anorexic pupil.

Despite extensively complaining to ICO about all the above organisations, I have been totally unsuccessful in obtaining any valid information about his wellbeing for the past 23 months (?!).

The common sense, the law and the school’s procedures prescribe that I (as the whistleblower) should have been provided with the ‘feedback and reassurance’ by the authorities.

I received NO such ‘feedback and reassurance’ ( instead, I was sacked, blackmailed, harassed, my records were deleted which is against the law), hence I contacted ICO amongst other organisations..

In April 2017, (Complaint case reference FS50654710) Mrs Cressida Woodall (Lead Case Officer of ICO) brought the decision which was totally opposite to the above mentioned school’s safeguarding policy: ICO decided that I should NOT be provided with ‘feedback and reassurance’.

ICO also published my name in their decision on the internet, despite the fact that it is an ICO’s standard procedure to anonymise names of individuals who ask for FOI.

The NSPCC

On several occasions, NSPCC promised me that they will pass on my concerns and liaise with the school and LADO (Local Safeguarding Officer in Greenwich).I never received any response from LADO, hence I asked the NSPCC for LADO’s contact details.

NSPCC refused to disclose details of the Local Safeguarding Officer (LADO) because they are “confidential”. This insults intelligence: the name of this particular LADO and his email address should be available to the public (as it is with other LADO’s).

NSPCC refused to disclose details of the Local Safeguarding Officer (LADO)[10]

I still do not know (after 22 months) whether Mr Ken Palmer is indeed the Local Safeguarding Officer at Greenwich Children’s Services. He totally ignored my emails.

Winchmore Tuttors agency and Ofsted

Winchmore Tutors agency employed me at Thomas Tallis school.

Winchmore Tutors informed me over the phone about my dismissal on the 16/2/2016 during the half term break (I was dismissed on the 12/2/2016 without my knowledge in less than 2 hours after sending my whistleblowing email to Mrs Smith).

On the 22/2/2016 after more phone calls between me and the agency, I sent an email to the agency repeating my concerns. Agency told me that since I sent my whistleblowing email before I left the school, than the agency has nothing to do with it.(?!)

I was also told NOT to contact Ofsted and to think about my future job prospects with the agency, etc.

It was Winchmore Tutors Agency, and NOT the Sedgehill school who cancelled my tuition [9]

Winchmore Tutors are one of the biggest agencies in England of this kind and are providing tutors to more than 100 local authorities. They also have 6 camps for children.(According to their Ofsted registration.)

Director Mr Craig Varney claims that he is the “Designated Safeguarding Officer”, whilst Mrs Megan Knowles also states in her emails that she is the “Safeguarding Officer during office hours”.

Manageress Mrs Alice Riches also played a huge part in the cover-up.

According to their own guidelines, both Mr Varney and Mrs Knowles have to pass the test related to safeguarding EVERY 2 years.

Despite all the above, Ofsted has repeatedly refused to inspect the safeguarding credentials of the above Winchmore Tutors staff for the past 14 months for the reason that they are NOT registered with Ofsted ( even though they are – please see above.)

I repeatedly complained to Ofsted about their own failures to inform me about their actions with the school and their failures to inspect Greenwich Children’s Services for 3.5 years which is in breach of Ofsted’s own guidelines that prescribe one inspection in maximum 3 years.

I also repeatedly asked Ofsted to verify the safeguarding credentials of the staff at the Winchmore Tutors agency who repeatedly ignored my concerns and told me to “move on”,”move forward”,..

(This is in breach of the Winchmore Tutors agency Safeguarding Policy and Law Acts.)

Ever since I started complaining about Ofsted, my ex partner started receiving huge number of phone calls (from unknown number), messages and letters (every few days) from Ofsted informing her that she has to be inspected. This has been ongoing for the past 7 (?!) months.

She was a private nanny for many years and was Ofsted registered. (Childminders are inspected by Ofsted, but nannies for private clients are usually not inspected.) Before my complaints to Ofsted, my ex partner never received such calls from Ofsted, hence I do not believe that this is just a coincidence.

It is totally unacceptable that the whistleblower and the whistleblower’s message are treated in this way. It is also totally unlawful.

Lack of protection for both the victim and the whistleblower

1) I researched intensively the issues relating to whistleblowing and child protection over the period of the last 16 months. I confirm that the system of safeguarding and reporting abuse does not work at all, and I strongly believe that my case is not the only one. There was no investigation of my concerns. Instead, I was sacked and harassed. (I have an extensive evidence. ATTACHMENT “Supervising organisations did nothing” [1] ).

Just one example: In my case, the school used the police officer to harass me and accuse me of harassing them (?!) because I reported their failures and negligence to the external organisations.

This is totally outrageous and unacceptable.

The very same thing happened to another whistleblower and was reported in the media just a few months ago:

All the above points to the fact that my case is not as unusual one as it seemed at first.

The organisations will stop at nothing in order to prevent the exposure of their misconduct and failures.

2) Considering all the above, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) is not a deterrent to the wrongdoers and abusers.

Also, Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 is not protecting whistleblowers.

Facts:

Only 3% of whistleblowers are successful in the Employment Tribunal, and here are the reasons why:

Instead of the public body pursuing the organisation, it is down to the whistleblower to prove that his employer breached the health and safety/safeguarding guidelines and relevant Law Acts.

At the same time, the whistleblower (who is now unemployed) is forced to privately fund his lawyer whilst careers and reputations of managers are fully protected with 24/7 legal department lavishly funded by the oblivious taxpayer.

Even if the whistleblower wins, those managers remain in their managerial positions and continue receiving monstrous salaries and pensions.

In my case, it was Head of Children’s Services Mrs Gillian Palmer (not to mention any other manager involved in this cover-up) who has moved from Barnet to Greenwich as the Head of Children’s Services despite thedamning report of her misconduct in the Serious Case

3) Employment Tribunal (ET) is NOT interested in the health and safety/safeguarding issues.

Instead, it will look only into the legal side of the whistleblower’s employment issues. Solicitors and Public Concern at Work (PCAW) informed me about the above. PCAW has concerns about PIDA and it can be seen from their website. Also, this charity has even more serious concerns about PIDA and continued abuse of both victims and whistleblowers: http://www.compassionincare.com/node/162

4) I also discovered that NOBODY enforces the following Laws and guidelines:

This policy has been compiled with reference to the following key Legislation/Guidance:

· United nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989)

· The Education Act 2002

· Sexual Offences Act 2003

· The Children Acts 1989 & 2004

· The Childcare Act 2006

· Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006

· Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education (DfE 2006)

· Childcare (Disqualification) Regulations 2009

· Working together to Safeguard Children (HM Government 2015)

b) ”Thomas Tallis school Safeguarding Policy”:

Page1 lists guidelines and the Law Acts totally ignored by the school:

• ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ 2015

• ‘What to do if You are Worried a Child is Being Abused’ 2015

• ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ 2015

• Children and Families Act 2014

c) “Children’s Commissioner – Good practice”

d) DfE’s “Keeping Children Safe in Education”

Considering all the above, the whistleblowers are not protected, hence organisations continue to breach the Laws and guidelines.

This sends the wrong message to other potential whistleblowers hence the victims continue to suffer.

Whistleblowers have the central role in exposing any kind of abuse of vulnerable children and adults, hence it is totally outrageous and unacceptable that we are treated by the system in this way and left on our own when we have to protect ourselves and also to protect the Public Interest.

I was treated appallingly just for being the whistleblower:

I raised my concerns about the anorexic/emaciated pupil on the 12/2/2016.

I was sacked less than 2 hours later despite excellent praises from the school’s Deputy Head, my agency, pupils and their parents.

I was never subjected to any disciplinary meetings and my performance was good.

I reported the matter to Ofsted.

As the result, the school blackmailed Winchmore Tutors agency to sack me.

I was sacked and then blacklisted with 6 agencies ( so far I have the proof of) and very possibly with other agencies and organisations, just because I complained about the system.

I was harassed over my private phone by the school’s police officer to stop my complaints to external organisations.

Also, the members of school staff went to my home address with intention of harassing me and provoking an incident.

ALL my school data was either deleted or concealed.

(I never received a single email of my correspondence with the school staff.)

School even amended (took out certain parts) of my whistleblowing email.

Both ICO and Parliamentary Ombudsman repeatedly and totally ignored the above facts.

For the past 22 months I have been unable to obtain the job and not even a teacher training (?!) despite teaching at the school/college and also privately tutoring GCSE Maths and Science for over 20 years and despite the fact that there is a great shortage of Maths and Science specialists in the secondary schools (hence the government’s initiative to urgently train such specialists.)

Even my application for the government’s initiative for teacher training (to train Maths and Science specialists) was dismissed by the King’s College University (Mrs Visvanathan) on the false grounds:

Mrs Rosanna Visvanathan alleged that I do not have “any relevant work experience” and that I have provided “no evidence of having any interest in the relevant subject area”.

On that basis, she dismissed (?!) my application for the teacher training programme even though it was approved by UCAS.

Mrs Visvanathan totally ignored the following facts:

that UCAS accepted my credentials,

that I have Master’s degree in Civil Engineering,

that I have PTLLS higher education teaching certificate,

that I have numerous excellent references including the references from West Kent College where I used to be the Maths, Science and English Lecturer,

that I have checkable 21 years experience in teaching GCSE Maths and Science to private students.

He insults intelligence by dismissing my complaint on the false/ludicrous grounds on 23/8/2017:

His perception of my tutoring of Maths and Science is actually negative (?!) instead of being a positive factor. In his opinion, I “placed too much emphasis” on my Maths and Science Tutoring.(?!) He also stated that I did not have “work experience”. (?!)

I complained about his above claims on the 24/8/2017. He totally ignored me.The above is just one of many instances in which the system TOTALLY destroyed my life.

Surely, I am not the only whistleblower in the UK who got destroyed by the system which is supposed to protect all of us.

The Sanctuary for the Abused [A] has advice on how to prevent triggers.

National Association for People Abused in Childhood [B] has a freephone helpline and has links to local support groups.

6 Responses to Child Safeguarding Whistleblower, Thomas Tallis School Part 1- Cover Up

Firstly, my heart goes out to the child and their family at the heart of this and secondly to teacher Mick V.
Sadly, as we all know this is not an isolated case and failings go un-checked and self-policed by those who are there to protect. I was abused in a local authority remand home in the 1960s and 70s and I continue to see echoes of the same failings, cover-ups, bullying, ignorance and incompetence at every level of work.
I was a consultant and one to one support worker for children abused by the method of exploitation. I served on the LSCB child abuse, exploitation and missing subgroup, finally resigning from the position out of frustration and bullying by the Police and council child welfare head (both struggled with the concept of CSE). One Superintendent and D.I came to see threating me with warrants and closure of the charity I worked for. Their opening line was “Why I am saying this about my city” read from that what you may. Echoes and similarities with Risky Business.
I would follow up recommendations to schools and third sector of Serious Case Reviews, for me, these are a tick box rather than a real opportunity to make a change and protect. I always led a merry dance and the conclusion always the same. None of the recommendations went forward used, given out, monitored or policed.
I find statutory services hind behind the cloak of confidentially above safeguarding. As a generalisation isn’t safeguarding the law and confidentially best practice with a little bit of law? This action then tries to stop the third sector, community groups and even families making a real difference working with a child.
Many times, we had children referred to us by statutory services to us, emotionally and physically after the worst sexual abuse imaginable. We would have to fight for any information on the child’s background, when it did come it was limited and of no use. The information would come through child and family.
When I could get the LSCB’s files on a child, I would compare the Police report, the social workers report, ask the family to write theirs and it was like reading about three different children. Which did I believe, the family and child’s every time.
Have children’s services really improved that much since the 1960s.
Stay strong Mick V and all like him.

Many thanks for your support lewisstreetsurvivor.
Your story is shocking.
I am very sorry that you suffered and went through all this.
I went through identical hell (with all UK supervising organisations and ALL their chief executives) in order to get to the bottom of this matter.

After my (very extensive) 2 year investigation, my only conclusion is that something very bad is happening to the vulnerable members of our society on a daily basis and that the whole system is extremely well organised in covering it up.
Why are they going to such extreme lengths to cover up
the abuse and neglect of the child ?
Who are those abusers they are all protecting ?
By covering up the abuse, they have all become abusers themselves.

I do not know where the child is, or what happened to him.

According to both the school,Greenwich Council and ICO, such information should not be disclosed because it will then be in the public domain.(?!)
That is totally contravening relevant laws and the school’s own safeguarding policy that prescribes that “feedback and reassurance” has to be provided to the whistleblower.
Over the period of 2 years, I repeatedly reminded all 3 above institutions of the above fact, but they totally ignored me.

In addition to my extensive correspondence with ALL UK safeguarding institutions, I also extensively went through the complaints procedures with Greenwich Council and it’s Counsellors.

I was in direct contact with the Head of the Greenwich Council Cllr Denise Hyland many times.
I provided her with voluminous evidence of my allegations and concerns.

Despite several reassurances from both her and Greenwich Children’s Services, there was NEVER an investigation for the past 19 months.

Instead, the Head of Greenwich Council’s Legal Services (Mr Andre De Freitas) sent me 2 emails in which he intimidates me by letting me know that he knows to whom I was complaining over the past 2 years.

(He listed certain organisations to whom I complained, but who never responded to me. How then does he know about my complaints to these organisations?)

Mr Andre De Freitas repeatedly totally ignored my requests for the “reassurance and feedback” which is prescribed by Law and school’s safeguarding procedures.